Untangling
by Manic Penguin
Summary: My heart is so tangled up in Derek that I’m not sure I will ever be able to escape his hold on me. And, more importantly, if I even want to.


_**UNTANGLING**_

_My heart is so tangled up in Derek that I'm not sure I will ever be able to escape his hold on me. And, more importantly, if I even want to._

_GA_

Just a little monologue in the mind of Meredith Grey set near the end, but before the finale, of season 2.

_GA_

Despite the fact that I followed in her footsteps career-wise, I have never wanted to be my mother. She always provided for me, made sure that I had a nanny who would make me snacks after school and check my homework before I watched TV in the evenings. I wasn't neglected as a child, despite the fact that I had no parents.

I had a nanny, Stacy, who was twenty-three when I was six and who, when I turned fourteen and started getting confused by boys, sat with me in my room while I talked about Raymond Jenkins, the boy in my English class who I was sure I was destined to be with for the rest of my life with, and, then two months later, she held me, my whole body shaking with my grief and embarrassment-filled sobs, when Raymond Jenkins took pleasure in pointing out to the entire grade that my new white jeans were stained with blood, my first step toward womanhood having snuck up on me like all other life-altering events in the history of my life. Stacey lived with us in what is now Izzie's bedroom until I turned sixteen and my mother decided I was too old for her to pay someone to look after me.

I had tutors in every subject, insurance Ellis Grey facing the embarrassment of her only daughter coming home with a less than perfect report card.

I had the nurses at Seattle Grace where I would spend hours waiting for my mother to come out of surgery after promising that she would keep her name off the board so that we would spend the afternoon together doing the mother-daughter bonding thing. By the time I was ten I had every room in the hospital memorized, and so when I came back to do my internship here I ignored the tour because I assumed that nothing had changed when the truth was that everything had, as I found out when I was trying to find CT that first day with Katie Bryce.

And, of course, I had Richard Webber, my favourite non-uncle-uncle, who always brought had a smile and a story to tell and who was the real inspiration for my going into medicine, though I never told him that.

Richard Webber, the man I have trusted and respected for as long as I can remember.

The man who fell in love with my mother.

The man who got her to fall in love with him, too.

The man who got my mother so twisted up that she kicked my father out of our lives.

The man who took the safe way, who did what was right, and who stayed with his wife despite being in love with my mother as well.

I'm not sure when it came to me. Sometime between seeing them sitting and laughing in my mother's care centre's common room and seeing his reaction to the news that my father had a whole family that was congregating in his hospital, waving their happiness in front of the woman who they didn't know was the daughter that Thatch forgot about, I guess, but the truth is that it wasn't a sudden revelation but rather a series of realizations that led to me sitting in Dr. Webber's office rambling about how he chose Adele over my mother and how that was the smart thing to do.

Ten years ago I would have been angry at him. Richard Webber, the moral tent-pole in my life, was a cheater, a liar, and the reason that I didn't have a father. Ten years ago I would have been furious. But it's not ten years ago and I have some perspective on the situation that only comes with age and experience. Age adds maturity, or so I'm told. I've got that part covered, assuming that the fact that I'm twenty-seven and not seventeen means that I'm more mature, which at times I'm not certain is the truth. The experience, however, I'm certain of. I now know that my father moved on, had two daughters with another woman, and is now a proud and overprotective grandfather. I know that my mother never dated after my father went away, not because she was a workaholic—though she was—or because she was hurt by my father, but because she was hurt by Richard Webber choosing Adele over him. I know that Webber was well and truly torn when he found himself in love with two women—not from my own experiences but from watching Derek struggling with Addison and me—and that staying with his wife was what was right for him, despite the fact that his decision nearly destroyed them both at the time.

I am not furious. I do, however, hate him because if staying with his wife was the right thing for him that means that it might be what is right for Derek, too, and despite the fact that I am dating Finn now, there is still a very large part of my soul that still belongs to Derek and my heart still prays that he will pick me, choose me, _love_ me, the same way that I love him.

Because I can't stop.

Webber chose what was safe, and even though it tore my family apart, I can respect him for that. But suddenly it's my turn to make a choice between safety and passion. Finn could give me the life I need, with safety and love and the knowledge that there are no secrets that he's hiding from me. But my heart is so tangled up in Derek that I'm not sure I will ever be able to escape his hold on me. And, more importantly, if I even want to.

END


End file.
